| Since 1970's, steel plates have been used as shear walls participating the frames in resisting lateral loads due to wind and earthquakes, referred to as Steel Plate Shear Walls (SPSWs). Modelling of SPSW is required a high level software which engineers are not familiar to use, as well long time for analysis is needed. Therefore, an equivalent analytical methods had been investigated and implemented to simplify the analysis process by means of conventional analysis software, such as: using strip modelling and equivalent bracing (truss) elements to replace the infill plate.;This study investigated analytically the using of truss-elements as a simplified method to model an unstiffened thin SPSW, by means of ABAQUS (Ver. 6.14) and under monotonic "pushover" loading. Several truss-elements models had been evaluated through changing two parameters, the number of the trusses and the effective width, to verify their behaviour against that at the plate model. Geometrically and Materially Non- Linear Analysis (GMNLA) had been followed and large-deflection effects were taken into account.;It was found that the truss-elements model required an odd number of trusses (1, 3 or 5), with one truss connecting the two opposite corners (diagonal truss), as well the required truss width was slightly more than the truss spacing in the model. On the other hand, the initial stiffness of the truss-elements models was generally lower than that at the plate model. |
